Participants will learn how to integrate their disciplinary expertise and curricular content with community-engaged pedagogical elements using the OPERA framework (objectives, partnerships, engagement, reflection, and assessment) to create a coherent and impactful course experience for students. They will apply dimensions of CEL course design, including purpose, process, and relationships, and consider various foci, forms, and frameworks that are best suited to their vision for their community-engaged course. The session will also introduce theoretical frameworks for teaching and learning that are foundational to community engagement and provide an overview of the origins and current context of community engagement in higher education to allow faculty to situate their practice and understandings within a broader scholarly context.

Outcomes/Takeaways:

  • Use OPERA framework to plan your community-engaged course structure and content
  • Consider integral components (e.g. purpose, process, relationship, and forms) that will inform your course design
  • Locate your community-engaged course within a broader historical and contemporary context of higher educations’ public purpose  

Moderator: 

  • Star Plaxton-Moore, Campus Compact Faculty Development Fellow & Director of Community-Engaged Learning, Leo T. McCarthy Center for Public Service and the Common Good, University of San Francisco